The APD
by Smaniby
Summary: Set immediately after Brunettes Are In, Lee has finally admitted Amanda is his partner and now he has to prove it. I do not believe it breaks Canon.


_AN: Obligatory notice that this is my first ever FF and I wasn't sure how to get it beta read, so reader beware. Also, I gather I am supposed to note that I don't own any of these characters. Situations referenced and a few lines are from the episode "Brunettes Are In" written by Bill Froehlich and Mark Lisson_

Lee extended his hand to Amanda and said "Partner?"

"Yeah" She replied with a relieved smile. She released his hand and he started to guide her away, but before he could take a step, she asked "Lee, what is the next step?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, now that we arrested that awful Mr. Sinclair, what happens next in the case? We always just catch the bad guys and write a report, but what else happens to make sure the bad guys get put away?"

Lee took on a pedantic tone as he said, "Well, the techs gather the physical evidence and it gets tagged with the case file. Once we have written our reports, they would be combined with witness statements and summaries of the interrogation. We would make a case to go to trial, which should be a slam dunk in this case."

Amanda tilted her head to the side and asked, "The techs collecting the evidence – what kind of items would they look for?"

"Anything that could help with a conviction – in this case any documentation of the client list, drugs they would have used to subdue the women"

"Like Gail" Amanda interrupted.

"Yes. You must be pretty worried about her." Lee said.

"I hope the worst thing they did to her was to keep her drugged. She's a kind person and a good friend."

Lee began to walk toward the car but Amanda stayed put. "What if they found something that might be evidence but they weren't sure. Like, if they found a camera, would they develop the film inside it?"

"Absolutely" Lee confidently stated. "It might have incriminating pictures, or help us identify parties that were not on the boat today."

Amanda let out a puff of air and her head dropped. Lee noticed that she seemed to wilt right in front of him, and that was the first inkling he had that something was wrong.

"Amanda, what is this all about? Is there something I should know?"

Amanda looked askance and said "Why would you need to know something?" Now Lee knew she was evading him because she answered his question with a question.

"Amanda, we are partners now, right?"

"Yes" Amanda acknowledged with a small smile.

"Well, partners back each other up, and I can't back you up if you don't tell me what is wrong."

Amanda let out another frustrated puff of air and stared at his shoes. She mumbled something that sounded like "Hey book baked tin pig turn Tommy." Lee said "Huh?" She mumbled again but he still couldn't make out anything that made sense. Lee said, "I'm sorry Amanda, I'm just not hearing you right." Frustrated, Amanda spit out "They took naked pictures of me!" The couple frolicking on the boardwalk nearby whipped their heads in her direction and she winced as she turned away in embarrassment.

Lee was silent for a minute, and Amanda risked a glance at him. She wasn't sure what she was expecting – probably for him to joke with her that it wasn't a big deal and that things happened in the job sometimes. She certainly wasn't expecting the glance of murderous rage he was leveling at the van that was departing with the suspects. He spat out, "Did they touch you?" Amanda immediately replied, "Oh no. They had some sort of catalog and apparently, they took pictures of all of the women. I guess I should be glad in a way because Mr. Sinclair told me he wanted to 'spend some time with me', and I think the photographs are the only reason he didn't immediately follow through with that, so I guess it could have been a lot worse. I just don't know how I am going to face Francine, or Mr. Melrose, and what if the pictures get out around the office? I'll never be able to look anyone in the eye again."

Lee thought Sinclair was pretty lucky he hadn't known about this when he decked him. He could have done a lot worse, and while he had been disgusted by the enterprise in general, he was furious they had involved his friend. He could see Amanda was mortified about the photographs. He already felt like a jerk about the way he had treated her that last few days; now he had to live with the fact that he had been on the same damn boat while she felt humiliated and he couldn't do anything to stop it. Suddenly, he began to grin as he came up with an idea to help her.

"Lee, it's really not funny" Amanda muttered with as much quiet dignity as she could muster.

Lee gently grasped her arms and replied, "I agree – it's not funny, but that is not why I am smiling. Listen, I think I have an idea to help you, but we have to act quickly. I need you to stay quiet unless I prompt you, and not to ask any questions until we get to the car. Do you think you can do that?"

Amanda realized she didn't have any brilliant ideas of her own this time, so she agreed to play along. Lee steered her toward a crime scene technician. Amanda thought she might have seen him in the halls of the agency before – he was taller than Lee and rather thin, with a shock of bright red hair, so he was pretty memorable. Lee affected his friendliest familiar manner and said, "Hey George! How is the evidence collection going?"

George gave an annoyed grunt at being interrupted, and started to reply curtly, "It would be going faster if…" At that moment he noticed Amanda and changed his tone. Lee had begun to notice that people were generally much nicer to Amanda almost by instinct – they didn't have to know her well to see her innate kindness. George continued, "Um, it's going well. They were so concerned about keeping the operation mobile that they left almost everything on this boat."

Lee put on his most charming smile and said, "That's great! Listen, have you found any cameras or film canisters on board?" He put his arm behind Amanda and inched her closer to George. "Amanda thinks she saw them take a few photos that would implicate some of the low level thugs. I think we could use them to get them to roll over on the bigger fish in the interrogation room – do you think I could rush those back to the agency for you?"

George smiled at Amanda and said, "Scarecrow, do you have a CIC527?"

Lee's smile slipped for a moment, but he pasted it back on and said, "No – I am fresh out. Do you have one I can use?"

George was eager to show Amanda he could be helpful – he thought she was lovely and wanted to impress her. "No problem – I'll fill one out real quick and you can just sign it."

As George scurried to the front of his van, Amanda asked, "Lee, what is a CIC527?" Lee joked, "It's a Change In Custody form – I think the 527 is because it was the five hundred and twenty seventh form the government came up with that year to make an agent do more paperwork." Lee loved to tease Amanda – her nose would crinkle up adorably at a really bad joke and it never failed to amuse him. "We need to make sure the evidence is always logged and in the Agency's control so the integrity is maintained and we can prove it hasn't been tampered with."

"So, what are we going to do once we get custody of the evidence?"

"Oh, we are going to tamper with it" Lee replied with a mischievous wink.

Amanda's jaw dropped and Lee whispered "Close your mouth – you'll catch flies" as George approached them, clipboard in hand. Lee signed the form and George walked right to the spot where he had stored the cameras and film. He put everything in a box and gave it to Lee. He stared right at Amanda as he said "If you ever need anything else, just let me know. I'd be happy to help out any time!"

"Thanks, George – I'll let you know if this helps to put those scuzzballs away." Lee wasn't sure he liked the way George was eyeing Amanda and quickly steered her toward an Agency sedan Billy had told him he could use. When they got in the car, Amanda turned to Lee and said, "Are you crazy! We can't tamper with evidence! I really don't want those pictures getting circulated, but those guys deserve to be put away, and you've got to draw the line somewhere."

Lee took a deep breath as he pulled out of the parking lot. He knew how he could set Amanda's mind at ease, but he wasn't sure he wanted to do it. Of all the things that had happened on a case, what he was about to tell her was the most humiliating. He glanced at Amanda. She was the definition of quiet resignation, and knew he would have to share with her. "Amanda, I'm about to tell you something that only 3 people in the world know about. You have to promise that you will never mention this to anyone."

"Of course, I won't. You know you can trust me. I mean, unless you killed someone in cold blood – if that is your secret you probably shouldn't tell me that."

Lee chuckled. Leave it to Amanda to put him at ease with a joke. He began his story. "This happened sometime around 1976 or '77. The Agency got some intel that coded messages were being passed through advertisements in a women's entertainment magazine, and I was sent undercover as a model to figure out exactly which staff members were involved."

"So far, that sounds pretty routine" Amanda remarked.

Lee chuckled again. "Well, it wasn't your standard women's entertainment magazine. It was more, um, adult in nature. Before I had a break in the case, I was forced to go through with a photo shoot so I didn't blow my cover. It was pretty risqué."

"How risqué are you talking?" Amanda leaned toward him and whispered, even though they were alone in the car.

"Does Burt Reynolds on a bear skin rug ring any bells? Except my hand wasn't covering anything – it was used more to, um, accentuate certain body parts."

"Oh my gosh!" Amanda exclaimed. "I had no idea!"

Lee smiled. "That is exactly my point! See, as agents, sometimes we have to do things we would never choose to do in our actual lives. Things that could embarrass us, or damage relationships outside the Agency. We can't hesitate when we are undercover, so sometimes we have to go for it and fix things after the fact."

Amanda was quiet while she considered what he had told her. "I guess that makes sense, but I still don't think we should tamper with evidence. I don't want to give those men any reason to get away with what they were doing."

"That's why the field agents have a sort of unofficial network of folks who help us in these situations. People we can trust to determine if we can remove any embarrassing or damaging information without compromising the evidence. I like to call them the Agent Protection Detail, or the APD, for short."

"You have a nickname for your unofficial network?" Amanda asked.

"I have a nickname for all of my networks – it helps me keep them straight. It's really not any different than the measures the Agency takes to remove identifying information to protect an agent's anonymity. In the magazine case, the photo shoot really didn't have anything to do with the evidence, so it was easy to destroy the photos and negatives. You know it worked because if those photos still existed, you would have seen them by now."

Amanda had to agree with Lee on that point. She'd certainly heard enough details about Lee's physique from the steno pool to know that they would definitely show corroborative evidence if they had it. (Or at least ogle it on a regular basis). She was suddenly glad the photos had been destroyed – hearing the details had been bad enough. She really didn't need a photograph burned into her memory every time she talked to him.

At this point, the sedan had reached the Agency parking lot. Lee parked and opened the door for Amanda before grabbing the box from the backseat. They entered and Lee gave the password to Mrs. Marston. After retrieving Lee's ID badge and Amanda's guest pass, they entered the elevator and Lee asked Amanda to push the button for the 5th floor. As the elevator descended, Amanda worried about what was going to happen next. She usually felt comfortable in the halls of the Agency, but today she felt like everyone would take one look at her and know she had been naked in front of a group of strangers. She knew it was silly, but she still felt their eyeballs on her – it had been an awful experience. She couldn't even imagine how she would have felt if they hadn't escaped and she had been sold as if she were an object.

Lee looked at Amanda and he could tell she was still upset. She had asked a few questions, but not nearly as many as he had expected, and the quiet elevator ride was unnerving him. He hoped he could set her mind to ease quickly so she could go home and process her afternoon.

The elevator doors opened and Lee directed Amanda to turn right. When they arrived at the photo lab, he entered and rang a buzzer by the door in the entry hall. He heard a voice yell, "Just a minute!" and he waited for the inner door to open. When it did, a woman emerged and gave a delighted squeal. "Scarecrow – where have you been lately! I have missed you." Amanda almost immediately liked this woman, she reminded her of her mother. She had the same gregarious manner – Amanda watched in shock as she actually pinched Lee's cheeks as she greeted him. For his part, Lee actually seemed to like the attention – he gave her his genuine smile, the one he saved for his friends. Lee turned to Amanda and said, "Amanda, I'd like you to meet Linda Baranski. Linda, this is my partner Amanda King."

Amanda started to reach her hand forward at the introduction but was immediately enveloped in a giant hug from Linda. "Oh Amanda! I've heard a lot about you. I've heard you saved Lee's bacon more than once. Any friend of Lee's is a friend of mine." Amanda modestly replied, "Well, I think we have done a good job of watching out for each other. It's very nice to meet you."

Lee turned to Linda and said, "We actually could use some help from the APD." Linda winked and said, "Oh – more modeling work, Lee?" Lee actually blushed before turning to Amanda to say, "Linda is one of the three people who know about what I mentioned earlier – she is the one who helped me out of that situation."

Amanda nodded and leaned forward to whisper, "the bear skin rug?"

Linda cackled and said, "I like her! She has spunk! What can I do to help?"

Lee explained about the pictures that had been taken on the boat. When he had finished, Amanda again expressed her concern that they not compromise any important evidence. Linda took Amanda's hands and said, "Don't you worry about a thing, honey. I'll take a look at the film and we will only remove the photos if we can do it cleanly. I am very good at my job so unless they are actually engaging in an illegal activity over your shoulder in the photos, we should be fine." Amanda smiled. Linda was really very comforting and it did make her feel better to know that Linda would be viewing the photos instead of Lee.

Linda gathered the film rolls and retrieved the film that was loaded in the cameras. There was a total of 4 rolls of film. Linda turned to Amanda and explained, "We are in the developing room antechamber. We are going to turn the lights off in here before I open the door to the actual dark room. Once we get in there, I will work with the film until it is ready to be processed. When I get to the point where we can view the pictures that you are in, I will let you look with me and we will both decide if it would damage the case to destroy them. Does that sound like a good plan?"

Amanda gave a relieved sigh and said, "It sounds good to me. Where will Lee be while this is going on?"

Lee replied, "It's a pretty nice photo lab – there is actually a couch in their and if memory serves me correctly, I can sit there and I won't be able to see a thing unless you show me.

"That's right, Lee. It probably would be a good idea for you to be there in case I see anything that would help the case before we get to Amanda's pictures. Let's go."

They entered the darkroom and Lee used the faint red light to find his way to the couch. Amanda sat next to him for a minute to make sure he wouldn't be able to see anything. After surreptitiously sitting up until she was even with his height, she was satisfied.

Linda got to work preparing the film for processing. As she worked with the first roll, she said, "It looks like Amanda wasn't the only person they photographed. There are at least 5 women on this roll of film, but no Amanda." She worked through the development process, treating the pictures with care and inserting them in a folder marked "Eyes Only." She worked some more with a few of the pictures and put those in a separate folder, which she handed to Lee. "Those are cropped to only show the women's faces. Hopefully they can be used to identify and recover them."

Linda was working on the second roll when she gently prodded, "Amanda, I'm working on your first photo. Do you know how many they took of you?" Amanda thought back and said, "I heard the camera click 4 times, but I can't definitively say they only took four." Linda looked at the roll and said, "We'll go through them. It looks like there are about 7 left on the roll."

Amanda watched as the first photograph came up – this one was the front view. She was grateful to see that it was basically a photo of her in front of a wall – she didn't think there would be any evidence destroyed if this photo disappeared. She glanced at Lee and was relieved to see that he had made a point of staring at his shoes. Linda looked at the photo and whispered, "Are you sure you don't want to keep a copy for yourself? If I looked like that _au natural,_ I would want a record of it to exist in the world somewhere!" Amanda gasped, "Linda! No!" She looked at Lee, but he showed no indication that he had heard the comment, so she relaxed. She decided she was going to make sure Linda and her mother were never in the same room together. She didn't think she could handle two of them at once.

Amanda watched as 3 more pictures were developed, one taken from each quarter turn. After determining that she was the only thing in focus in the pictures, and they could have been taken in front of any blank wall, she and Linda agreed they could be destroyed. As each one finished developing, Linda placed each print in a chemical solution that basically burned the photo paper to a crisp.

Lee had been sitting on the couch making sure that he stayed quiet and out of the way. Linda began to develop the next photo, and as the image came into focus, both Amanda and Linda gave a surprised gasp. Lee looked up and saw that Amanda had closed her eyes as tight as she possibly could. Linda looked at Lee and said, "You might want to come up and take a look at this one." Lee was wary based on her tone. He stood up and viewed the photograph. "What the hell!" he exclaimed.

He could tell he was unconscious in the photo – it must have been taken before he had woken up chained to the pipe. He was draped on a couch, and it looked like they hadn't bothered to remove his clothes all the way. His shirt was open and pushed halfway down his arms. His pants and boxers were around his ankles, and the rest of him was on full display. "When in the hell did they do that? Why would they even do that?"

Amanda, who had resorted to covering her tightly closed eyes with her hands, as if it would help her un-see the picture, asked "do you think they were going to try to sell you too?"

"Well I do now!" Lee shuddered to think about who may have been interested in purchasing him. He didn't think these guys had known he was an agent, so he didn't think any potential buyers were interested in his secrets.

Linda gently said, "If these guys were opportunists and they had someone that looked like you just fall in their laps, I could see it. There are probably some women and even some men who would be interested. I am guessing I am destroying this too?"

"Yes, please!" both Amanda and Lee exclaimed at the same time. Amanda felt her way over to the couch so Lee could watch as the rest of the roll was developed. There were 3 total pictures of him and Linda made quick work of disposing of them. Lee made his way over to the couch next to Amanda and they waited while Linda went through the remaining rolls of film. When she had finished, he gave her the CIC527 to sign and took the prints she had made to help identify the women. They watched as she cut their photos from the negative strip and placed them in the chemical solution to destroy them.

Amanda looked Linda in the eyes and said, "Thank you for helping me. I was so worried and now I can relax knowing that my privacy is safe without compromising the case." She gave Linda a quick hug, and decided she was going to give her a mother an extra long hug that night even if it would arouse her curiosity.

Lee hugged Linda as well. "You helped me out again. I think I owe you a nice dinner out – just let me know when you and Frank are available."

Lee guided Amanda to the hall. They looked at each other and were both silent for a minute before Amanda broke the ice by asking, "Who was the third?"

"Who was the third what?" Lee was puzzled.

"Who was the third person that knew about the magazine photos?"

Lee laughed and said, "Believe it or not, it was Billy. He wasn't the section chief yet, and he was working that case with me. He knew I had to go through with the shoot and he was the one that suggested I talk to Linda. He wouldn't tell me exactly what she did for him, but it had something to do with a drop at a nudist colony."

Amanda's eyes got wide as she imagined that scenario. "I think I'm lucky I didn't work here in the 70's" she joked.

"Definitely" Lee replied. "Francine and I had to compete in an amateur disco competition. Her designer original dress got caught in her heels and she managed to pull most of it off in one turn. I'm pretty sure she had any footage from that destroyed too, but she can't remove my memories" he laughed.

Amanda said. "I can't believe I never heard about that before." Amanda was trying hard not to laugh at Francine's misfortune but was finding it difficult.

Lee said, "Well, that's the other thing. We will joke, but in the end, agents always watch out for each other. I've never told anyone else about that."

Amanda leaned toward Lee and said, "Don't worry, Lee. I trust that you will never tell anyone what happened to me in that boat, and I promise I will never tell anyone what happened to you. I even promise not to mention what happened to Francine, although it may be the hardest assignment I have ever received."

Lee looked at Amanda and saw the trusting look she always gave him. He was determined to earn it from this point forward. "Thanks Amanda. Now why don't we get you debriefed and to your car so you can go home."

Amanda smiled, "That sounds like a great idea to me." Then she put her hand on his arm and leaned even closer to him. She had a mischievous sparkle in her eyes that he wasn't sure he liked at all as she said, "For what it's worth? I think you would have gone for more money than me." His mouth opened but no sound came out – he just watched as she turned and walked quickly away from him, impish smile covering her face. He followed her toward the elevator, wondering if she would ever stop surprising him.


End file.
